Weeks of international intrigue about the whereabouts of tech millionaire John McAfee ended Tuesday after the Internet pioneer made an elementary digital mistake that highlighted the fraught relationship Americans have with what they once quaintly called “the telephone.”

That homely communication tool, wired into walls everywhere for the better part of a century, has become an untethered e-mailer, browser, banker, shopper, movie viewer, music player and — to an extent that few appreciate — digital spy of extraordinary power.

McAfee, 67, who founded the popular antivirus company that bears his name, has been wanted for questioning by police in Belize since a neighbor turned up dead of a gunshot wound near McAfee’s beach-side home Nov. 11. The troubled tech savant, insisting that he had no role in the shooting, went on the run and has been taunting police by blog, Twitter and occasional podcast.

Authorities couldn’t catch him. But a hacker called Simple Nomad learned McAfee’s location shortly after journalists posted an image of him from his supposedly secret locale under the provocative headline, “We are with John McAfee right now, suckers.”

Embedded in that image, apparently taken by one of the journalists, was the sort of detailed data routinely collected by smartphone cameras and often transmitted along with images wherever they go — on e-mail, Facebook, online photo albums and, it turns out, to Vice magazine’s Web site.

Law: "Now remember, class, when we like you, we call you a Security Researcher. When we don't like that you showed us up but you helped us, we call you a Hacker. When we want to tap into the meme to scare the sheep into letting us pass new laws, we call you a Terrorist. So be nice, okay? You wouldn't want to be called a Terrorist. P.S. We need another $50 Billion for a new surveillance program."

So when that journalist photo went viral, no one in Law was skilled enough to use all that juicy data to come to that conclusion themselves?! It took a "Hacker" to do it?! Aren't these the guys who hire Consultants for millions of dollars a day? But they couldn't even give $100 and a pizza and bar tab to a "Security Researcher"?!

I'm just a semi-senile ol' humanities bird, but I bet every one of you Dev Cody's out there could have done that.

Law: "Now remember, class, when we like you, we call you a Security Researcher. When we don't like that you showed us up but you helped us, we call you a Hacker. When we want to tap into the meme to scare the sheep into letting us pass new laws, we call you a Terrorist. So be nice, okay? You wouldn't want to be called a Terrorist. P.S. We need another $50 Billion for a new surveillance program."

Meh... Whatever. This whole McAfee thing is just one long string of laughs!

I learned a long time ago to remove the EXIF and any other exorbitant data from my pictures with a freebie called JPg Cleaner 95, for no other reason than it makes the file smaller and saves drive space.

I learned a long time ago to remove the EXIF and any other exorbitant data from my pictures with a freebie called JPg Cleaner 95, for no other reason than it makes the file smaller and saves drive space.

Is this the same as MetaData? Because deleting it risks turning you into a Terrorist per other threads! (What about that Poor Journalist? Was his photo being shared without his direct permission? That's Copyright Infringement by Terrorists to you! http://www.photo-mar...-stripping-metadata/ Oh, Won't Someone Think of the Journalists??)

Law: "Now remember, class, when we like you, we call you a Security Researcher. When we don't like that you showed us up but you helped us, we call you a Hacker. When we want to tap into the meme to scare the sheep into letting us pass new laws, we call you a Terrorist. So be nice, okay? You wouldn't want to be called a Terrorist. P.S. We need another $50 Billion for a new surveillance program."

Spot on! The Phoenix sums it up in just 51 words.

Take a bow T-Man!!!

"Shit. You mean I miscounted? Well delete the word 'into' in the middle of '(into) the meme' then it's 50 words exactly, right?"

Is this the same as MetaData? Because deleting it risks turning you into a Terrorist per other threads!

Yep - same thing. And nope - not worried as I'm already guilty of a thousand other things to label myself as a "terrorist". Still, filling the piggy bank a coin at a time works. Oh... and that's another way in that I'm a terrorist - I have physical silver.

In more on-topic news, John McAfee has suffered a heart attack (or reasonable facsimile) and is applying to Guatemala for asylum. Apparently he's genuinely afraid of the Belizean government:http://abcnews.go.co...7890926#.UMGg9CGZP80